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Thursday, April 16, 2020

Ruskin Eagle Returns Home After Fifty-year Flight

by Mary Wilson

Nearly five decades ago, Karen Sue Jochim walked the halls
of Ruskin High School, proudly displaying her class ring on her hand. Gold in
color, her ring symbolized her Eagle heritage, complete with the mascot nestled
beneath the bright blue center stone. Her initials, KSJ, were engraved along
the inside of the ring, and it was a piece of her high school career she truly
loved.

Jochim, who graduated high school in 1971, later became
Karen Schwartz, and now lives in Raymore, not far from her Ruskin roots. Sometime
in the mid-1970s, Schwartz said she lost her beloved class ring.

“The ring has been lost longer than I ever had it,” said
Schwartz. “I just remember not being able to find it. I always kept it in my
jewelry box and, I’m thinking somewhere between 1972 to 1976, that it was
gone.”

She still has a small pendant that she also received around
the same time frame while in high school, but the ring has been gone for nearly
fifty years. Until last week, Schwartz hadn’t thought about the ring in quite
some time. However, on Thursday, April 9, she started receiving messages on
Facebook from old friends who thought maybe someone had found her class ring.

Becky Barbour, who by miracle or coincidence happens to be a
1997 graduate of Ruskin rival Hickman Mills High School, works at the Oakhill
Day School in Garland, Texas. A fellow teacher’s child was playing on the
playground at the school and announced that he had found a ring.

“He said, ‘Oh, it has a jewel in it,’” said Barbour. “He
brought it to me, and was muddy, so I could tell wherever he found it that it
had been there in some mud for a little bit. I kind of wiped it off, and when I
wiped around the jewel or the stone, I saw it said Ruskin High School.”

Being from Hickman Mills, Barbour immediately thought that
she knew this ring was from her hometown. Though not being from Texas
originally, she quickly searched to ensure there wasn’t a Ruskin High School
somewhere near Garland. To see if she could track down the owner, she posted
some photos along with a description of where the ring was found, and the
initials engraved on the inside, to a Hickman Mills alum Facebook page.

“I wanted to try to see if I could find who it belongs to,
and if not, then I’d give it back to the little boy who found it because he was
so excited about it,” said Barbour. “What are the odds that I would know where
that school was, first of all, and it was found at my school down here in
Texas. I was just really taken aback to even find something that old on our
playground, but I was excited because I wanted to be able to return this ring.”

Within four hours of her post, friends contacted Schwartz,
saying that the ring had to be hers due to the initials KSJ on the inside. Sure
enough, it was her ring.

“I loved that ring,” said Schwartz. “I always thought it was
so pretty because it had the eagle underneath the stone and I’m curious to see
if that is still intact. It’s just the most bizarre thing. I don’t know how in
the world it ended up in Texas.”

Schwartz said that her brother seemed to think maybe the
ring was lost on a family trip to Wichita Falls. However, she debunked that
theory, remembering that they took that trip to see cousins while she was still
in high school, before she even had the ring in the first place.

“I would have only been like 16 at that time, and I wouldn’t
have had it then,” said Schwartz. “The other times I’ve been to Texas have been
within the last few years, well after the ring disappeared.

“It’s just the darnedest thing,” she added. “I’m excited to
get the ring back. Who would have thought I’d see it 50 years later? I wish it
could tell me a story, because, holy cow, to end up in Texas from Kansas City.”

What a journey her ring has surely been on. By
the time this story is printed, the eagle has likely landed back in Missouri,
and is heading home to Schwartz, where it belongs.

1 comment:

This was the story that I told Marissa that people from the different classes helped. It is amazing how classmates from difference years got in and helped to get this ring back within three house of the first post!

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